Foreign Ministry blasts EU’s anti-Russian ‘witch hunt’

View of the European Parliament building in Brussels (Reuters) / Reuters

A senior Russian diplomat has expressed bewilderment over the decision to limit Russian officials' access to the European Parliament, adding that such unexplained and unmotivated actions were reminiscent of medieval witch hunts.

“I have an impression that the European bureaucracy is
partially returning into the times of the Holy Inquisition. The
hunt for Russian witches has been opened,” the deputy head
of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s information department, Mariya
Zakharova, wrote in a Facebook post in the early hours of
Wednesday.

“What will come next? Clerical processes against Russian
diplomats and burning them at stakes in Brussels?” Zakharova
joked. She also noted in her Facebook post that it was impossible
to understand the logic in the actions by European
parliamentarians.

The statement was a reaction to the European Parliament's
decision "to restrict the free access" to the chief of
the Russian Mission to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov. This
was announced on Tuesday by the President of the European
Parliament, Martin Schultz. He said that the decision was
motivated by the Russian authorities’ alleged failure to ensure
transparency of the recent sanctions against European
politicians. The European Parliament president also said that the
body was suspending its engagement with the EU-Russia
Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.

Later on Wednesday, the Russian representative in the European
Parliament commented further on the parliament’s decision, saying
that under the new rules only he and another diplomat were
allowed free entry to the body. All other Russian officials had
to receive entry permits on a day-to-day basis.

In comments to RIA Novosti, Chizhov noted that the restriction
was Martin Schultz’s personal decision, announced after their
telephone conversation. “In essence, this is a clearly
politicized and unfounded decision that cannot be justified in
any way,” Chizhov said.

The Russian diplomat added that the move had already prompted
criticism from some European parliamentarians. For example,
Swedish MP Anna Maria Corazza Bildt called the ban “unfounded
and anti-democratic.”

The head of the Federation Council’s Foreign Relations Committee,
Konstantin Kosachev, called the EU’s move a “repressive
decision” and suggested that Russia reciprocate with similar
actions, either symmetrical or asymmetrical. “It was not us
who spoke the first word, but we must not give up the last word
here,” Kosachev wrote in Facebook.

“Their logic hardly impresses me by being very thought
through. It rather makes me doubt the sanity of its authors. But
at the same time, it is absolutely clear that they would like to
have the last word at any cost – to punish and pardon,” the
Russian senator stated. “This is a part of the West’s larger
game in which it seeks to establish a monopoly on truth.”

The decision of the European Parliament and the Russian reaction
to it were the latest developments in the standoff between the EU
and the Russian Federation that started over 12 months ago, when
the EU introduced sanctions against Russian officials and
politicians and Russia replied with counter-measures. The Russian
blacklist was not initially disclosed but leaked to the press
after Moscow presented it to European diplomats after repeated
requests.

On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed disappointment
in their Westerns colleagues who made the list public and called
such measures a threat to mutual trust.